Let them, Let me

I’ve been reading The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins — though, funny enough, I had “Let Them” tattooed on my skin long before I ever read her book.

At the time, those two words felt like freedom.
Let them. Let them walk away. Let them misunderstand you. Let them believe whatever story they need to.

But now, as I read deeper into the book, I’m realizing there’s another side I hadn’t considered — the “Let Me” side.

It’s easy to say “let them do what they want” and pretend that detachment equals peace. But “let me” asks something harder. It asks for responsibility. For awareness. For courage.

Let me decide how I respond.
Let me stop trying to control how people see me.
Let me let go of my obsession with being understood.
Let me live in truth, not in performance.

For me, this lesson has come crashing into my relationship with my mother — the lifelong tangle of love, guilt, and fear that has shaped so much of who I am. For years, I bit my tongue to keep the peace. I told her what she wanted to hear, avoided the hard conversations, softened my edges to protect her feelings. I thought that was love.

But somewhere along the way, it became self-betrayal.

The Let Me side of this philosophy has forced me to look in the mirror and admit how much I’ve hidden my truth. I’ve started saying the things I never said before — the truths that have lived like stones in my chest.

Not to be cruel. Not to punish. But because silence had become its own form of suffering.

My mother still reacts the same — yelling, shaking, threatening not to speak to me — but something in me has changed. I don’t crumble anymore. I don’t feel the old fear of “getting in trouble” like I did as a child. I’m 47 years old, and for the first time, I’m no longer afraid of disappointing her.

Let her react.
Let me stay calm.
Let her believe what she needs to believe.
Let me finally live in honesty.

It’s not easy. It’s not neat. There’s guilt that still flickers when I set a boundary, and sometimes my voice shakes when I say what I mean. But beneath that, there’s this new stillness — the quiet strength that comes from no longer abandoning myself for approval.

Let them is freedom from control.
Let me is freedom from fear.

And somewhere between those two, in the middle, is peace — the kind that doesn’t depend on anyone else understanding you, only on you understanding yourself.